Institute for young kids who are advanced?

We just returned from the GWSI, and although a wonderful institute, I am exploring other options for next year, since it looks like the dates won’t work for us.

My 6-year old daughter is in mid book 3. The issue she had this year is that she was pretty much the youngest by a huge margin in most of her classes (and didn’t have a place to go during parent lectures since the play in was only for Books 1&2, and the alternative was for kids 10yo and up).

I am wondering if there are any institutes where there tend to be a lot of little kids who are in higher books? (For some reason it was not much of an issue for my cellist, maybe because classes were smaller and she got lucky to have 2 buddies only a year or so older than her.)

I can only speak from our experience which is somewhat similar. Our daughter just turned 7 and is also in mid-Book 3. Each year we’ve attended institute, there has been a very slight increase in the discrepancy between her age and the average age of the class. At this stage, it’s probably about a 1.5—2 year difference. She is always the shortest one in the class.

That said, the institute we’ve attended for the last two years, the American Suzuki Institute (ASI) in Stevens Point, WI has been a great experience. The range of ages in each level is fine; and our daughter has always been able to meet up with compatible kids. In any case, we’ve never encountered the “black hole” where kids don’t fit into any class. I’d definitely recommend it.

Parenthetically, the hardest part for us, in group class settings, is dealing with the divergent maturity levels. DD can play up to par with the older kids; but doesn’t have the level level of self-management and attention that they have.

There are several institutes where you will find small children in higher levels. I haven’t been to any of these camps for financial reasons but I have done the research for the same reasons as you in the hope that we can go out of state next year! I too would prefer my daughter to blend fairly well age/ability wise to get a well rounded experience.

I second ASI in Stevens Point—that one was actually recommended to us. Also Ithaca SI in New York, Intermountain in Utah…. Check out this YouTube video of a group young kids playing from book 6: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=clC82q60vYE, Japan-Seattle SI. Also I suspect Sanford CA may be similar but I don’t know for sure (they are primarily an advanced track books 4+ but accept younger siblings).

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